The Irish standard., 1887-03-05
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CHAPTER IX.-(Continued.)
When once a certain train OF feeling
has been laid in the soul, it is extraordi-
nary to observe what slight accession
Of circumstances are required to stimu-
late and strengthen it until it has. 60
untuir1eed a L mastery over the Judgment and
the will itself. Every new sight, every
new sound, that arrested the sense OF the
Coiner as he pursued his route with his
companion, served to confirm him in the
disposition to mournful retrospection
which the simple accident Of afine sunny
evening, and the revisiting soil untrod
by BIN for many year, had occasioned
within his heart. The corn fields, yet in
ear. where he had been stationed, while
vet child, to terrify, by the gathering
of two fiat stones, the dark-plumed
plunderers Of the neighboring rookery
from his patrons tillage-the very mea-
dows in which he had assisted in harvest
time in filling the load of sweet hay on
the car, for the purpose Of stacking in
the haggart-the paddock to which he
had been dispatched on many an even
ing as fine as this, with an armful OF
grass for the weaving lambs, and apot of
milk and hay-water for the young calves
the very sally-grove where he was ac-
customed to walk and chat with her
whom he had lured from her fathers
door "a door that had opened so hospit-
ably to him in his necessities and
whom he was now preparing to desert =
all these objects acted like fire upon the
remorse that was already beginning to
tester within the bosom of the guilty
wanderer. s,.' '.'5 re- IS
A crooked and (stilr broken-up ave-
nue. leading to farm house near the
road side, was the next object that
caught his eyes-and he again involun-
tar1ly slackened his pace, for the pur-
pose of gazing upon the dwelling. The
place was as familiar to him as his own
home would have been-indeed, it was a
house in which a very considerable num-
Der of the years of his unsettled boyhood
had been spent; but it was sadly
changed in appearance from what it had
been when he first beheld it in his young
days. It was then sweet cottage-em-
bowerea in foliage and .fragrance-with
all the indications of rural comfort and
content about it, It had now a desolate
and uninhabited air. The neat plot be-
fore the door was half converted into
tillage, and the remainder disfgured and
turned up by the grunting burghesses of
the adjacent piggery. A muddy pool
had settled under the front windows, in
which q few meagre-looking ducks were
dabbling and diving in silence The
hedge which encompassed the plot. was
broken and torn up, and at one spot had
completely given way, blocking up al
most half the avenue with its ruins. The
elder-tree, beneath which he had con-
structed a summer-seat which he often
shared with the pretty daughter of his
host, was now reduced to stump. The
house itself was stripped Of its decent
garment of rough-casting thatch
beaten in at several places-and the
chimneys dismantled; these emblems of
decay, together with the silence that
reigned over the place, struck new feel
ings of melancholy into the young mans
spirit. .a ~ ire arls4a /;
But the lattice that tapped when the wind was
80: 81 -shrill, sr aigs.'iE.4 4 - F@lz}
Though raves the gust and floods the rain,
No hand shall close its clasp again" ..,
@a A single poplar which stood erect in
it's graceful slenderness of form in the
center Of the little plain, like a gnomon
on dial plate, flung it's heightened
shadow in a direct line toward the front
door. The coiner started unc consciously
as he observed it, for that was the indi-
cation of the e1piry Of the sixth hour in
the afternoon. Breathing short, quick
sigh. he checked the reins of his steed,
which was making advantage of the med
itative disposition Of it's rider, to crop q
mouthful of heritage from the hedge
over which he was gazing, and hurried
forward with spirit still more disabled
than it had been before his arrival at this
spot, for the dreadful task to which he
had endeavored to bend up the energies
of his nature. +e- ga r.
He was doomed, nevertheless, to expe-
rience etill farther and more heart-shak-
ing disquietudes. AS he approached the
spot which was destined to be the scene